If You Need A Never-Ending Thanksgiving

It happened the day before Thanksgiving. 

 

The day my world spun me a little farther off course, sent my faith flying like some planet hurling into the cosmos, sheathed in blackness.

I should have been thankful.  I wasn’t very.  I was rocked, spinning, without a compass. Maybe you’ve been there?

It was the day the pregnancy test came back positive, announcing the impending arrival of baby number seven into our family and all I could see ahead was suffering.

I don’t have easy pregnancies.  They come with pain, months of vomiting and nausea, sometimes heart problems, sometimes high blood pressure, exhaustion, and the last time, I almost died.

With my fourth baby I had to wear a heart monitor because my heart just wouldn’t keep up on me.  It raced out of control.  I couldn’t breathe and eat at the same time without difficulty.  I was in a constant state of exhaustion.  Baby number five was almost the same except this time my midwife put me on an extremely high protein diet to help ward off impending heart trouble.  It made me gain sixty pounds and after 24 hours of labor and being dialated to ten, I had to deliver a ten pound-eleven ounce baby by c-section because that gentle giant of a boy couldn’t even descend into my pelvis on account of his toddler size body.

By baby number six I was determined to gain less weight, and have a different outcome.  That pregnancy was one of my best, and he arrived healthy at a lovely seven pounds. It was an hour after the birth that the trouble started.  They called it a post-partum hemorrhage and no one was expecting it.  Before they realized what was happening fully I had lost a lot of blood.  I could not keep conscious.  I’ll spare you the gory details but in the end they had tried everything to get the bleeding stopped, including a procedure that no woman should have to endure, where the midwife tried to remove the blood clots from my uterus with her hand.  Let’s just say I am thankful that I was barely conscious at that point because, even in the midst of the swirling blackness of semi-consiousness, that was serious pain. Eventully, they rushed me into the operating room and let me know that I might not wake up with a uterus if I woke up at all.  Yes, the doctor had to tell me that because he even thought I might not make it through this.  But I did, hence the fact that I am writing these words, and even after losing over half of my blood volume, I walked out of there with an intact uterus and my beautiful baby boy. 

But after that I guess I thought maybe I was done.  My endometriosis had returned with a vengeance and the tell-tale pain was making life difficult again.  I have lived with the pain of this disease since I was a teenager and I thought that maybe this time my body was saying my baby years were over.  I gave away my maternity clothes.  I gave away my baby clothes.  I gave away just about every baby item that I owned in October.  And then, the day before Thanksgiving, I realized that I was pregnant again.

I wish I could tell you that I rejoiced.  I wish I could tell you that even though I knew suffering lay ahead, that I counted it all loss, and looked with joy to the cross that was set before me.  No, I think I cried.  I knew that most likely another hemmorage lay ahead of me, would this one take my life?  I knew that most likely I would have many months ahead of constant nausea and vomiting and exhauation.  I knew that it was going to be painful.  Depression set in with solitary cold of last winter’s snowpocalypse, and my days were long and bitter like the biting winter wind.  I limped through them, sipping peppermint tea and crying out for Jesus.  I wish I could tell you, that I handled it gracefully, with peace and hope, but mostly I wanted to have a pity party for myself.  Mostly, I cried, a lot.  I cried at the the thought of not being there to see my kids grow up.  I cried at the thought of this baby now knowing me at all.  I cried out for God to be gracious to me even though I knew I didn’t deserve it. 

July came with its blazing summer sun and the time for his arrival had come.  A few weeks before the baby was due, my family threw me a surprise baby shower (since I had given everything away and now had nothing for this baby) and I was overwhelmed by their thoughtfulness.  God provided every single thing we needed for this baby.  My neighbors gave me a used car seat, clothes, a diaper bag.  My sister in law gave me her baby swing, nursing pillow, and clothes.  God showed up even in my doubts.  I wish I could tell you, I had so much faith and I just expected God to come through for me, that he would provide it all, but I deep down, I didn’t really think that He would. He even caused the person I had given all my maternity clothes to, to call me and offer to give them back since she was done using them.  She didn’t even know I was pregnant, but God provided for me.

Finally the time came for baby number seven to arrive.  I wish I could say I went into the hospital with so much faith that I was going to come out alive and fine, but I didn’t.  I mostly just held my breath and waited for His answer.  Our fifth son arrived healthy and beautiful.  Things were going well until about three hours after the birth when the hemorrhaging started again.  This time they were able to get it under control with drugs because we caught it earlier and had taken precautions with other medications before it started.  There were some tense hours but in the end, the bleeding was stopped and they even sent me home early. 

Looking on the face of this precious baby, even the suffering of all those months seems small and insignificant.  The joy that I have had since he has been born seems unbelievable compared to last year's ordeal.  God has restored me.  He has given me peace, and He has used that trial to increase my faith and trust Him more.  He has used the struggle to build endurance and perseverance in me.  He has taught me more of His sovereignty in my life, that I really don't know much of His plan but I can always trust it. He has humbled me again and again and revealed my weaknesses that I might bring them to Him to be refined, cleansed and even used for His glory.

God was faithful.  Looking back, I can see how small my faith was, how much I doubted, how very little I trusted His provision, His goodness, His hand.  But God never gave up on me.  He never let me go, even when my faith was wavering, He remained faithful.  This Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for.  Thankful for God’s unending mercy to me, for His grace showed to the least that deserve it, for His faithfulness even in the midst of my doubt, for seven beautiful children that are worth every bit of suffering and pain.  I know that Thanksgiving over now but I want the season to go on.  I need to keep remembering His goodness, His faithfulness, His mercy, every day and rejoicing in His grace. 

When I started this blog, God gave me this verse, and I want it to always be the reason that I write words: “I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes.  I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike – the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus.  And now I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem.  I don’t what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit tells me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.  But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned to me by the Lord Jesus  the work of telling others the Good News about the grace of God.” Acts 20:20-24

May His grace encourage you, keep you, make you steadfast in all things, and always giving thanks to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.